I don’t fly the American flag, have a dog or own a gun. I appreciate other people who do. I have petted and had long conversations with their dogs, on very rare occasions fired their guns and respectfully observe their flags. Actually, I am not that inclined to own a gun, but I have thrown that in with the other two. The thing is that I would not invest the time energy and attention to do any of those three things properly. Judge me if you want to.
Not Easy To Do It Right
Proper dog care strikes me as extremely demanding. It is like having a toddler who will never grow up. Keeping guns secure is a non-trivial task. Trigger locks, a safe, etc. And if the reason you have the gun is self-defense you need to stay proficient. Going out shooting is fun for like an hour or two every few years.
Failures in flag etiquette are not as disturbing as neglecting or abusing dogs or guns. Nonetheless, they make me a little crazy. I take long walks around where I live and I find that the walks have turned into patrols of a sort. Sometimes, I will pick up trash. On rare occasions, I have helped out in an emergency, taking an inordinate amount of pride when I heard a policeman reporting in referring to me as a Samaritan (Frankly I’m not sure it was a compliment). It is also a sort of flag patrol.
Flag Patrol
There is a golf course nearby and they had festooned the grounds with quite a few small American flags. I walked by once or twice noting several of them, kind of ground into the dirt. So it’s not my property and not my flags, but still. I let it go for two walks, but on the third one I just couldn’t take it anymore. I picked them up and crossed the street and brought them into the clubhouse and handed them to the woman behind the bar, who was sympathetic. She explained that because the season was over the grounds crew wasn’t working anymore. Pretty lame excuse in my mind, but so it goes.
More of a challenge is the small cemetery on the corner. It is really nice that every Memorial Day, flags are placed in the little stands on the graves of all the veterans. According to the sign they go back to the French and Indian War. It looks great in June. But this is New England and winters are hard. By January quite a few are in the distress signal mode as the staples on top are off. Not easy to resecure. Eventually, some of them will be in the mud. When they are beyond hope I go in and pick them up and respectfully retire them. I can’t say I am doing it right.
I went to Walmart and bought a couple of new ones, but they don’t match. My plan this spring is to find out exactly who is placing the flags and buy some extra ones that match and ask them how they want me to handle the early retirements who did not make it through their one-year enlistment. Keep in mind though the opening paragraph about my low level of competence. I should have figured it all out by now.
There is one residential flag flyer on my route, whose flag is so faded that I have had to resist the temptation to ring the bell and tell them that their flag has earned respectful retirement. I did do that with a friend though and even gave them the money to buy a new flag. I also don’t hesitate to make comments to management at the RV camps where we have stayed on our tour of the country.
Keeping The Honor Clean
Here is something that I have noticed about flag flyers. I thought it might be regional but my RV travels convince me it is a national phenomenon. If someone flies the American flag and one other flag, the chances are very, very high that the other flag is a USMC flag. Why that is would be somewhat speculative on my part, but the great pride that comes from service in the Marine Corps is pretty well known.
When the American flag has a Marine Corps flag on its left (which is the correct way of doing it of course), it will never look faded, or, God forbid, torn. You can pretty well count on that, but that’s not what this post is about.
The Variants
It started when we were at an RV site in Colorado. There is a lot of flag flying at RV sites. Across from us, there was one that had been modified. The stars were in kind of a crescent and there was some sort of symbol on the lower part of the blue field. I didn’t get a count on the stars and I had trouble making out the symbol.
I was concerned that we were parked across from some sort of militia guy or something, although I would, of course, had been interested in talking with him if that was it. I could not find a sample of the flag on the internet. Finally, after asking around, I found the answer. It was dedicated to a particular sports team. I have to say that I was kind of outraged. You just shouldn’t do that. Have an American flag at the ball game and stand up for the National Anthem (or not, that’s a different issue), but don’t go altering the flag to make it out like your team is more American or something. That’s just wrong.
Later on, in the state of Washington, I saw a new American flag version. This one had the sixth stripe from the bottom (the one directly below the field of stars) a different shade of red than the other red stripes, rather than the white on the standard flag. I asked the person I was with about it and she told me it was for firefighters. Then I remembered back in my neighborhood the flag with the blue stripe. Somebody explained to me that that was for police officers. It had not bothered me much then, but it does now. Mainly because it has gotten out of hand quickly.
Now we have this travesty which is dedicated to first responders of various sorts.
I have not seen anybody flying it.
It is a good thing to give special recognition to people who have jobs that put them in harm’s way and require special skills and devotion. However, modifying a unifying national symbol is not the way to do that. If we think of first responders as “the tip of the spear”, it is necessary to remember that much of the efficacy of the tip of the spear is dependent on the whole rest of the spear, which includes ordinary citizens who show up for ordinary jobs and pay their taxes. They also belong on the flag.
That’s why we should follow the good example of those called to give special honor to those who at least according to their hymn were the first to fight for right and freedom. They display an American flag that includes everybody AND they fly their special flag. And further, they make sure that they are both well cared for.
Of course, this being America, the proliferation of specialized American flags is in part the result of people making money by selling special flags. Everything is like that. It can’t be helped. Rather than go against that grain I would suggest that they could do even better by encouraging people to not buy an American flag with a blue stripe to honor the police. Buy an American flag and a police flag or a firefighters flag or even better an American flag, a police flag, and a firefighters flag
Just take good care of them, And, also good for business, when they are worn out retire them.